I want to show in this story that thinking like an owner helps people to work harder and think like an owner.
When I was about 14 I wanted to start making my own money and looked for things to do. My brother mike and I went around the neighbor hood and asked if we could mow lawns. I picked up a couple of jobs, but but nothing significant. We also handed out a little local weekly paper. Noen of this was making much money, but it was a little something.
About the time I was 15 a local guy hired me to work on Saturdays. He paid me minimum wage a the time witch was 3.15 an hour or something like that. Sometimes it was hard work, but most of the time I just had to look busy, because there wasn’t enough work to do. He picked me up and dropped me off. So I couldn’t just leave when the work was finished. I really hated the job, because I spent a lot of time wishing I was at home sleeping.
A couple of months before my 16th birthday I talked to one of my friends who was cleaning a butcher shop in a local grocery store. He was ready to take a new job. He wondered if I was interested in a job. It sounded good to me they were paying $6 an hour. And it only took one and half hours a day 6 days a week $54 dollars a week. The coolest thing about this job was they would pay me the $9 no matter how much time it took to do the job. If I hustled I could get done in an hour. So while the rest of my friends were working for minimum wage. I was making $9 an hour. The store didn’t make me clock-in so my start time was flexible. The other deal was that if I wanted a day off I had to find and train a replacement. I don’t think they realized it but the were making me think like an owner. I work this job for two and a half years. There was only one time durning that 2.5 years that I wanted to take a night off and I couldn’t.
It was a great job I learned how to work hard. I learned that having control over the situation made life more bearable. It also created a desire to have this type of flexibility in all jobs. I didn’t even realize I was owner thinking until later on in life when I looked back on the situation.